Morrissey has announced a Canadian tour, his first shows in the country in fifteen years. He previously vowed to never play in Canada ever again in protest over the seal clubbing that still occurs there. But last year he said that he felt that boycott had not achieved much and that he’d rather play in the country and then donate money to Canadian animal rights charities.

In a post on MorrisseyCentral last September he wrote: “My decision to return to Canada after almost fifteen years of protest against its savage and Neanderthal annual baby seal kill is entirely because my stance was ultimately of no use and helped no one”.

“My voice was drowned out by the merciless swing of spiked axes crushing the heads of babies”, he went on. “On my return to Canada I feel that I can be of more use by making sizeable donations to animal protection groups in each city that I play. Thankfully there are many such organisations in Canada”.

With that decision made, shows have now been announced for April taking in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal.

LoveMusicHateRacism has announced a new campaign that will centre on a series of events taking place over two weeks next month. Under the banner Beautiful Resistance, the campaign will kick off on International Women’s Day on 8 Mar and also include a special event on the UN’s Anti-Racism Day on 16 Mar.

The campaign is being led by Paul Samuels of Atlantic Records, Ellie Giles of Step Music Management and long-time campaigner Zak Cochrane, and enjoys support from numerous artists and music companies.

The three campaign organisers say in a statement: “Since the advent of Rock Against Racism, our challenges have morphed. We now have to contend with not only far right intimidation and propaganda, but also with a growing trend for divisive and hateful language. None of this is OK with most of us, but we have to shout just as loudly with a positive alternative”.

“Gathering the strength of music and the music industry, we can help to change the lives – and outlooks – of so many people across the country and beyond”, they go on, “Voices of inspiration are vital to kids growing up and the response to our industry reach out so far has been so incredibly well received. We’re very excited at the potential for true, transformative change through our ‘Beautiful Resistance’ campaign and we welcome anyone who shares our vision of a world free of prejudice to join us and get in touch via our website”.

Bring Me The Horizon have said they are working out plans that will allow them to return to Phoenix and Las Vegas later this year, after they were forced to cancel shows in the two American cities this weekend after frontman Oli Sykes ruptured his right vocal cord.

Sykes said in a statement on Twitter this weekend: “I’m gutted to announce we have to cancel the remainder of our American tour. I’ve ruptured my right vocal cord and I’ve been told that if I don’t rest it immediately, I’m in serious danger of doing permanent damage”.

“I’ve been trying my best to fulfil our commitments”, he went on, “as I really hate letting you guys down, not to mention these shows have literally been the most fun ever. But at this point, me singing in this state would be the equivalent of a footballer running on a broken leg”.

The frontman concluded: “We are working on plans to come back to Phoenix and Las Vegas this year to make it up to everyone who missed out”.

Nick Cave is bringing his in conversation event – which he’s staged elsewhere in the world already – to Europe this summer, including no less than nine editions in the UK.

The official blurb explains that these shows are “a series of evenings of music and open discussion” in which Cave “will take questions from the audience on all manner of subjects and perform some of his most beloved songs on piano”.

After May dates in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, Cave will jump back across the great big fat wall we’ll have built in the English Channel by that point for the following UK appearances…

• Robyn has released a video for her song ‘Send To Robyn Immediately’, mainly to promote her new line of clothes designed for sportswear brand Björn Borg. “It is Robyn’s creative vision mixed with our brand DNA, a flirt with the street fashion of today”, says Björn Borg Design Director Mija Nideborn. About the clothes, not the video. Although that meaningless nonsense could probably be applied to both.

• Former Bullet For My Valentine drummer Michael ‘Moose’ Thomas’s new band Kill The Lights have released new track ‘Watch You Fall’. “‘Watch You Fall’ is about learning to cut toxic people out of your life that breed negativity and think only of themselves”, says vocalist James Clark.

Following the release of new single ‘Handmade Heaven’ last week,
Marina (just Marina now, no Diamonds) has now announced that she will
release her fourth album, ‘Love + Fear’, in April.

Recorded in London, Sweden and LA over the course of two years,
the LP sees Marina collaborate with songwriters including Noonie Bao,
Sam De Jong, Oscar Görres, Camille Purcell, Justin Parker and Joe
Janiak.

Following the album’s release on 26 Apr she will embark on a UK
tour, including a show at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Here are all the
dates:

• Billy Bragg has written the first in a series of political
essays for Faber Social. ‘The Three Dimensions Of Freedom’ will be
published on 2 May.

• Cardi B and Bruno Mars have released a new track together, ‘Please Me’.

• Foals have released new single ‘On The Luna’. They’ve also announced three low-key shows at Gorilla in Manchester, Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh and EartH in London in the days ahead of the release of new album, ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1’, on 8 Mar.

• Jenny Lewis has released new song ‘Heads Will Roll’ from her new album ‘On The Line’, which is out on 22 Mar.

• Becce J has enlisted D Double E features for her new single, ‘Timing’.

• Tommy Genesis has released new track ‘I’m Yours’ ahead of upcoming European tour dates, including a show at Oslo in London on 20 Feb.

• Lydia Ainsworth has announced that she will release her third album, ‘Phantom Forest’, on 10 May. She’s also released first single ‘Can You Find Her Place’. “I’m singing a number of the songs on ‘Phantom Forest’ from the perspective of Mother Nature and her views on humanity’s hubris”, she says. “However, on ‘Can You Find Her Place’ I am using my voice as a kind of Greek chorus singing about where you can find her strength, setting the scene for ‘Phantom Forest'”.

• Girl Unit will release his debut album, ‘Song Feel’, on 5 Apr. He’s just released new single ‘Stuck’, featuring Taliwhoah.

• Sasami has released new single ‘Free’ featuring Devendra Banhart. Her debut album is set for release on 8 Mar. She will play a show at The Lexington in London the same day.

• Broken Social Scene have released the video for ‘Boyfriends’, from their new EP ‘Let’s Try The After Vol 1’, which is out today.

“In the midst of chaos there’s opportunity”, Ja Rule told TMZ this week. Which will be why he’s relaunched what is essentially the Fyre talent booking app and now wants to stage a festival along the lines of its failed predecessor.

Still, I suppose he was there at the time. Maybe he’s already
learned everything he needs to learn about how to do it better next
time. Not working with his Fyre Festival co-founder – champion fraudster
Billy McFarland – would be a good start. Which is presumably easier for
him to do now that McFarland is in jail.

“It’s not funny to me, it’s heartbreaking”, he says of the
fallout from the Fyre debacle. “It was something that I really wanted to
be special and amazing, and it just didn’t go that way”.

“But in the midst of chaos there’s opportunity”, he goes on,
before referencing how the Fyre Festival was actually designed to launch
a talent booking app him and McFarland were working on. “I’ve got my
new platform, rebranded and rebuilt, and it’s an amazing platform”, he
adds. “It’s for artists”.

Given the similarities, he is keen to stress that the Fyre app
was a separate venture to the Fyre Festival. The app side could have
been a viable business, he reckons. And still could be. But there’ll be
no flawed festival to take it down this time, right?

“It is the most iconic festival that never was”, the rapper
says of Fyre Festival. “So I have plans to create the iconic festival.
But you didn’t hear it from me”. Oh dear.

Connie Constance has announced that she will release her debut album,
‘English Rose’, next month. It features as its title track her own
interpretation of The Jam’s 1978 song.

“My stepdad used to play ‘English Rose’ all the time when I was
young”, she says of her relationship with the Jam track. “Even back
then, I realised how beautiful that song is. It reminds me of everything
I love that is British”.

“The main thing behind the album for me is trying to reshape
the identity of the English rose”, she continues. “It’s like, what do
British people look like now? Because we certainly don’t all look the
same. And that’s part of my message: inclusivity. Asking what young UK
people look like now – what are our English roses today? For me, it felt
important to show how diverse this country is”.

• Swedish House Mafia have signed a new record deal with Sony’s
Columbia label. So you can stop asking if their reunion is going to
result in new music all the bloody time now.

• Futures Forum, a new one-day event for young live music professionals that will take place as part of the International Live Music Conference in London next month, will include a keynote interview with Dua Lipa and her musician father Dukagjin Lipa, it has been announced. Info on the full programme here.

• The Association Of Independent Music has announced more details about its all new three day conference AIM Connected, which will take place at Studio Spaces in London. It takes place from 1-3 Apr. Info here.

• The UK premiere of the film of Beth Gibbons and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Henryk Górecki’s ‘Symphony No. 3 (Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs)’ will take place at the Barbican in London on 28 Mar.

• Jessie Ware has released a new standalone track for Valentine’s Day, ‘Adore You’. “It’s just a little something to tie you over with until my next release”, she says. “It feels fitting to put this out when I’m about to become a new mum again and feel the most confident I’ve ever felt about my music. Happy Valentines, I adore you all”.

• Lizzo has released new single, ‘Cuz I Love You’, the title track of her upcoming new album. The video for the track will premiere at 3pm sharp today. Wait for it to go live here.

• Offset has released new single ‘Red Room’, taken from his debut solo album, which is out next week. The track previously appeared on streaming services last year, before being removed. Just in case you wonder why it sounds familiar.

• The Cinematic Orchestra have released new single ‘A Promise’, taken from their upcoming new album ‘To Believe’.

• Modeselektor have enlisted Tommy Cash for new track ‘Who’. The production duo’s new album, ‘Who Else’, is out next week.

• Daniel Thorne has released new track ‘Fear Of Floating’, the closing track from his upcoming debut album ‘Lines Of Sight’.

• Ezra Collective have released new single ‘Quest For Coin’ from their debut album ‘You Can’t Steal My Joy’, out on 26 Apr. “‘Quest For Coin’ is about the pursuit of money but not losing your soulfulness in the process”, explains bandleader and drummer Femi Koleoso. “You know when you can’t afford the train, so you get the bus and meet a beautiful stranger who talks to you about your saxophone case; yeah, that. Basically city life, London life”.

• Little Simz will play the Courtyard Theatre in London on 6 Mar. Her new album, ‘Grey Area’, is out on 1 Mar.

• Hozier has announced UK tour dates for September and October, which will finish up with a five night run at the London Palladium.

Professor Green has cancelled a UK tour hours before the first show after he fractured his neck in a fall during a seizure.

The tour was due to begin at The Globe in Cardiff last night. However, the rapper said in a series of Instagram posts that, while he was packing to leave for the tour, he had a seizure, which caused him to fall and injure his neck.

“I had seizure this morning which resulted in a fall while I
was packing for tour”, he wrote. “Depending on how you look at this fall
I was extremely lucky. I fractured vertebrae in my neck and
subsequently had to cancel my tour that was due to start today. I’ll be
back in the winter with a bigger tour. I’ve had two further seizures and
am lucky I didn’t break my neck. Really fucking lucky. Thanks for
bearing with me. Most importantly thank you to our NHS, heroes amongst
men (and women)”.

In a post on a second Instagram account, he revealed that he had never had a seizure before yesterday. And despite the further seizures in hospital, doctors could apparently not identify the cause.

“There’s one theory”, he wrote. “I’ve run myself into the
ground doing way too much, over stretching myself as per usual and it’s
finally caught up on me. Seems quite likely. I’m gonna use this time to
implement all the self-care I encourage others to put into practice –
and it’s going to stay in practice as there’s nothing like nearly
breaking your neck to put things into perspective”.

As well as the Cardiff show, dates in Birmingham, Glasgow,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Brighton have been
cancelled. Refunds available at the point of purchase.

• Roses Gabor has released new track ‘Turkish Delight’. Her debut album, ‘Fantasy and Facts’, is out on 22 Feb. She’ll also play St Pancras Old Church in London on 18 Mar.

• Django Django’s Jim Dixon will host a residency at Jäger Soho in London from 25 Feb – 3 Mar daily from 10am-6pm, marking the launch of his Jamboreeno Records label. The label’s first four releases will be on sale, along with a limited edition vinyl compilation, and there will be live performances too.

With the controversy surrounding abuse allegations against Michael
Jackson at its highest for several years now, Quincy Jones has announced
a concert at London’s O2 Arena exploring his work with the late king of
pop.

Jones will host a night on 23 Jun, two days before the tenth
anniversary of Jackson’s death, where three of the albums he produced
with the star – ‘Off The Wall’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’ – will be performed
by an orchestra.

In between the performance of each album, previously unseen
footage of the recording of each LP will be screened for the audience.
The night will also begin with an introduction from Jones, who will also
conduct the orchestra, along with Jules Buckley. Various unnamed
special guests are also promised to appear on stage.

The event follows last year’s ‘Quincy Jones – A Life In Song’
show. Tickets for this latest event exploring Jones’s back catalogue are
set to go on sale this Friday.

Nile Rodgers has been announced as the curator of this year’s
Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank. Say what you like about Nile,
he’s never not available.

“To be able to curate and produce nine days of live music for
the city of London, the UK and music enthusiasts visiting from all over
the world is truly a dream come true”, says the funk man. “Anyone who
knows my career knows that funk, disco, jazz, soul, classical, pop, new
wave, R&B, fusion, punk rock, afrobeat, electronic and dance music
all play a role and you can expect that to be reflected in the
performances we are planning”.

There aren’t many people Nile Rodgers hasn’t performed with or
produced, so there’s definitely potential for his Meltdown line-up to be
very exciting indeed. You’ll have to wait for the acts to be announced
though. The event itself will run to 3-11 Aug.

Honeyblood’s third album, ‘In Plain Sight’, is set for release in
May. The album will be the first with Honeyblood being a solo project
for Stina Tweedale, following the departure from the outfit of drummer
Cat Myers, who has been playing live with Mogwai since 2017.

“I started writing this at home on my own”, she says. “At first
I felt like a bit of a loner, but once I got used to the cabin fever, I
couldn’t turn back. This album felt like me being left to work out what
felt like this giant puzzle on my own. All the songs fed into this idea
of trickery and deception, of half truths”.

“Every move, every song, everything I was doing on this record
was new territory”, she goes on. “I really didn’t know what was gonna
happen. It was a big jump but a very eye-opening experience. I didn’t
want to play off the same tricks I’d used before”.

‘In Plain Sight’ is out on 24 May and lead single, ‘The Third Degree’, is out now.

Tweedale and her new live band will also be touring throughout the summer, with all these dates:

• Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings has acquired the Richard
Stumpf founded Atlas Music Publishing. “Richard has built an incredible
publishing business with Atlas and we are excited to bring him and his
team into the family”, says Braun. “By working with Richard and his
team, we will have a direct line to some of the most creative writers
making the publishing process more streamlined and personal”.

• Mixcloud has hired Okayplayer’s Daniel Petruzzi as its Vice
President Of Partnerships. “Daniel has played a critical role in
establishing Okayplayer as a cultural force in the music world and
beyond, helping to define and create the gold standard for online music
communities comprised of both artists and fans”, says Mixcloud’s Nikhil
Shah. “We are THRILLED to have him join Mixcloud’s New York office,
where his culture marketing expertise and music industry knowledge will
help us greatly expand our community in the world’s biggest market”.

• Diplo has released new track ‘Nine Shapes’, featuring Octavian. “I met Octavian at a party in London”, says the producer. “We took a photo and I never thought I would see the kid again. Over the next six months I kept hearing his name and seeing him on great songs. I tried to stay in touch even though he had another twelve phone numbers since we met. Finally, he was stuck in LA for a while and it was easy to pull up on him. After a few weeks we nailed this song and I’m glad it gets to finally see the light of day”.

• Sheryl Crow has signed a new record deal with Big Machine in the US. The musician is set to release what she has said may be her final album – a collection of duets – later this year. “When she announced that she intended to make her last album, I immediately reached out to [Crow’s manager] Scooter Weintraub and got a link to the music”, says Big Machine boss Scott Borchetta.

• Warner/Chappell has signed a new worldwide publishing deal
with songwriter and producer Joe Kearns. He’s best known for his work
with Ellie Goulding.

• Kobalt’s AWAL division has signed a new deal with Danish
label The Bank to represent singer-songwriter Hugo Helmig. The two
companies have already worked together on an EP and two singles by
Helmig. “The flexibility of starting out with a pure distribution and
then being able to change the deal while developing the artist has been
perfect for us”, says The Bank’s founder Jakob Soerensen. “We are happy
to tighten things up now by releasing one of the best pop debut albums
from Denmark in a long time with AWAL”.

• Warner Music Group has named Eliah Seton President of
independent music. Which is novel. Actually, his job title is President
Of Independent Music & Creator Services. In his new role, he’ll
oversee WMG’s independent music distributor ADA Worldwide (of which he
was previously president), plus the Asylum Records label and the major’s
DIY distribution platform Level.

• Former Lady Gaga manager and Spotify exec Troy Carter has
been hired by talent agency UTA, with a particular focus on developing
projects for TV, Film and theatre. “His unique vision for the future
will touch every area of UTA”, says CEO Jeremy Zimmer.

• Reporter Jim DeRogatis is to publish a book on the
allegations of sexual abuse against R Kelly, almost 20 years after he
first began investigating the story. ‘Soulless: The Case Against R
Kelly’ will be out in June.

• Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has been reunited with a guitar that was stolen from him nearly 30 years ago. It’s a pretty cool story.

• Anna Of The North is back with new single ‘Leaning On Myself’. She’s also announced that she will play Village Underground in London on 19 Mar.

• Gojira have announced that they will play three shows in the
UK this summer: Birmingham Academy on 29 Jun, Brixton Academy on 30 Jun,
and Manchester Apollo on 1 Jul.

• Pink will be the recipient of this year’ Outstanding Contribution To Music prize at the BRITs. She’s the first non-British artist to receive the award. “Since the beginning of my career the British fans have been some of the most fierce and loyal in the world”, she says. “I am humbled to receive this honour and be in the company of an illustrious group of British icons!”

Billy Bragg has announced UK and Ireland tour dates for later this
year, which will see him take up residency in various venues for three
nights at a time.

The tour’s called ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back’, which
kind of sounds like a promise of declining quality each night. It’s not
though! Oh no, not at all. Basically, the first night will see Bragg
perform his current live set, with songs new and old. Then over the next
two nights he’ll hone in on his back catalogue.

On the second night of each residency he’ll perform songs from
his first three albums, ‘Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy’, ‘Brewing Up
With Billy Bragg’ and ‘Talking With The Taxman About Poetry’. Then on
the final night, he’ll explore three more classics: ‘Workers Playtime’,
‘Don’t Try This At Home and ‘William Bloke’.

“After more than three decades of travelling around the world
in a van, or spending all day flying vast distances to play a gig, I’m
looking forward to having some time to explore cities that I usually
only get to see between the soundcheck and the show”, says Bragg. “And
this three night stand format is a way of keeping things interesting,
both for me and the audience. I tried it out in Auckland recently and
had a lot of fun revisiting my back pages”.

• Former BMG President Zach Katz has teamed up with Scooter
Braun’s Ithaca Holdings to launch Raised In Space Enterprises. What’s
that? Well, it is a “first of its kind investment group guiding
extraordinary founders in creating innovative solutions for the music
industry, from inception to market adoption”. Well, you did ask.

• Edge Investments has announced a £3.5 million investment into
festival-focused ticketing platform Festicket, which “partners with
festivals to provide standard and VIP packages that combine
accommodation, transfers and admission for festivals worldwide –
creating a complete and hassle-free one-stop shop for festival-goers”.
In case you wondered.

• Do you remember that time when it felt like Global was trying
to buy up every UK commercial radio station? Well, now its Bauer Radio
that’s in full on acquisition mode. It has just bought not one but two
local radio groups: Celador Radio and the Lincs FM Group. That adds a
whole bunch of extra local stations to Bauer’s portfolio, though it will
sell three of them on to Nation Radio, all of them in markets where
Bauer already has a presence.

Daniel O’Sullivan has announced that he will release a new solo album, titled ‘Folly’, on 5 Apr, the follow-up to 2017’s ‘Veld’.

The album was written around the birth of O’Sullivan’s son and
the death of a friend, with both events bleeding into his lyrics. He
explains: “Joy is inseparable from suffering and sometimes those
polarities arrive at the same moment. Music offers a vessel to contain
the unspeakable”.

Of the writing process as a whole, he adds: “Writing songs
alone can take some time even if a song arrives fully formed in your
mind. The execution of it involves long durations with each individual
part of the arrangement until it reaches something concise”.

“The song tells you what it needs and I try not to force ideas
onto it”, he says. “These songs are outside in rather than inside out,
there was always a latency between the birth of the song and my
understanding of its purpose. ‘Folly’ is looking at who is doing the
shaping, most of these songs are about writing songs”.

Around the album release, O’Sullivan will perform two shows at
Sutton House in London on 5-6 Apr, with guest appearances from Peter
Broderick and Thighpaulsandra, among others.

Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine has spoken about the controversy
surrounding his band’s Super Bowl half time show performance that is set
to take place this weekend. Earlier this week, the band cancelled a
press conference about the gig, Super Bowl organiser the NFL saying in a
statement that they would instead “let their show do the talking”.

Since it was first rumoured that they had been booked to play
the show, many have called on the band to cancel over the NFL’s
treatment of American football player Colin Kaepernick after he
protested police brutality. A number of other artists passed on the 2019
Super Bowl set for this reason, including Rihanna and Jay-Z.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Levine says that people just have an “insatiable urge to hate a little bit” when it comes to the Super Bowl half time entertainment. “I’m not in the right profession if I can’t handle a little bit of controversy. It’s what it is. We expected it. We’d like to move on from it”.

He insists that he did give the criticisms due thought before
accepting the NFL booking, saying that he consulted “many people” before
ignoring them. He explains: “I silenced all the noise and listened to
myself, and made my decision based upon how I felt about it all. No one
thought about it harder than I did. No one put more thought and love
into this than I did”.

The massive sporting event is set to take place in Atlanta this
year and Big Boi will be the sole representative of the city’s strong
hip hop scene. A further controversy surrounding this half time show is
that an Atlanta native wasn’t booked to headline it. Though, given the
other controversy, it’s possible some were asked and declined.

It will be accessible in the free-to-play ‘Fortnite Battle
Royale’ version of the game, in which up to a 100 players at a time
fight to the death. Which could make watching the performance
interesting.

Marshmello’s manager announced an upcoming tie-up with Fortnite earlier this month, saying on Instagram that it is “gonna have the world shook”.

Presumably the stage for the show isn’t going to become a permanent fixture of the game, but who knows? I just discovered that there’s still a whole Duran Duran area in ‘Second Life’ – complete with rehearsal room, night club, cinema and giant tower of Hades – from their tie-up with that digital whatnot over a decade ago. In other breaking news, ‘Second Life’ is still online.

• Interpol have released new track ‘Fine Mess’. They’ve also announced UK shows in Leeds and Brighton this June.

• Octo Octa has announced new EP ‘For Lovers’, which will be out on 1 Mar. Here’s new single ‘I Need You’. The producer will also be in the UK for live shows in February and March.

• Cid Rim has released new track ‘Further’, featuring Lylit. “‘Further’ is about picking oneself up after defeats”, he explains. “But not only that, if you take all the energy a defeat or a big loss creates and channel it in the right positive direction it can give you a boost to take risks, challenge yourself and go further than you’ve gone before. And sometimes as a result of all that, a defeat can lead to a much bigger positive impact in the end. That’s what the song is about”.

• Jónsi & Alex Somers have announced that they will perform
their ‘Riceboy Sleeps’ album live with the London Contemporary
Orchestra at the Barbican on 8 Jul. It will be just the second time that
they have performed the album live and the first time in Europe.

• Killers guitarist Dave Keuning has announced that he will
return to the UK for more solo live dates in March and April. He’ll
conclude the run at The Garage in London on 2 Apr.

• Confidence Man will play Electric Brixton in London on 2 May. “We’re coming back London and we’re takin it so far that you need to be fluent in body language to even understand it”, the band insist.

It has been confirmed that the Common People festivals that
previously took place in both Southampton and Oxford will not take place
this year. The two events were sister festivals to Bestival and Camp
Bestival, and the Common People company has followed the Bestival
business into administration. Administrators have now said that, with no
buyers coming forward, the two companies set up to run Common People
are in liquidation.

The Bestival Group was forced into administration by one of its money-lenders last year. Said money-lender then acquired the rights to the Bestival events, but almost immediately sold them on to Live Nation, which had entered into a joint venture with the festival’s founders Rob and Josie Da Bank. That new joint venture has already confirmed that Camp Bestival 2019 will go ahead, although there has been no word on the main Bestival bash.

It seemed likely that the collapse of Bestival would also mean
that the Common People festivals would not go ahead. The city council in
Oxford has now confirmed that is so, in part responding to that news
that the companies set up to run the Common People festivals are in
liquidation with debts of more than £500,000.

A member of the executive board of the city’s council, which itself is owed in the region of £7000 by the festival, told the Oxford Times: “Everyone at Oxford City Council is absolutely gutted that Common People Oxford will not be returning. We spent many years building the relationships that enabled us to bring the organisers of Bestival to Oxford and we have been proud to host them in South Park over the last three years”.

She went on: “The city council is committed to bringing another
annual festival that celebrates Oxford’s culture and diverse
communities to South Park as soon as possible, and we’re in discussions
with other festival organisers about this”.

Team Bestival launched Common People in Southampton in 2015
with a second Oxford edition subsequently being added. Although popular
with the local music communities in both cities, Rob Da Bank did admit
that he was disappointed with attendance at last year’s Oxford event,
telling a local newspaper at the time that he felt poor – and, as it
turned out, incorrect – weather forecasts had hit walk-up trade,
negatively impacting on turn-out overall.

Confirming the Common People companies were now being wound up,
a spokesperson from liquidator Begbies Traynor told reporters: “Common
People (Oxford) Limited and Common People Festival Limited went into
liquidation and the business and its assets were not bought by any other
company. As a result there will be no Common People festival in 2019.
We are unable to make any further comment”.

These New Puritans have announced that they will release their new
album, ‘Inside The Rose’, in March. Several years in production, the
album is the follow-up to 2013’s ‘Field of Reeds’.

“The songs are about beauty, transcendence, desire, oblivion,
ecstasy and eyes”, says the duo’s Jack Barnett of the new album. “I want
to go beyond myself and my time. That’s the art I like. Whether it’s
Francis Bacon or William Blake. You fail, inevitably, but that’s the
challenge”.